Coastal-zone changes coming for local parishes

BATON ROUGE — The Legislature is nearly finished with a bill that will add more of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes to the state’s official coastal zone.

Jeremy AlfordCapitol Correspondent

BATON ROUGE — The Legislature is nearly finished with a bill that will add more of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes to the state’s official coastal zone.

In exchange for more regulation and oversight, participating municipalities and parishes are afforded a wide range of resources such as engineering assistance and financial support paid for with state and federal money.

House Bill 656 has already cleared both chambers with only a few opposing votes, but changes made to the bill in the Senate this past week now require concurrence by the House.

That final vote is expected in the coming days. If approved, the bill will head to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s desk for approval; if the sponsor, House Natural Resources Chairman Gordon Dove, R-Houma, rejects the changes, a compromise will be hammered out through a special committee process.

Sen. Norby Chabert, R-Houma, inserted language in the bill that allows the new boundaries to take effect immediately if signed into law by Jindal. Dove is expected to concur with the amendment.

“We have some absurdities in the coastal zone,” he told lawmakers. “Parts of Montegut, Chauvin and Dulac in Terrebonne Parish are not in the coastal zone, but places like Slidell, Mandeville, are.”

Dove’s bill would fold those areas into the coastal zone.

“There’s a great deal of support for this,” Dupre added.

Archie P. Chaisson, coastal zone management administrator for Lafourche Parish, said he plans a “roadshow” in the coming months to inform residents about the changes.

A large portion of Lafourche Parish is being added, including Chackbay, Choctaw and Kramer.

For the most part, Chaisson said, he hasn’t “been getting any push back” in regard to the proposed law, even though large landowners can expect to have “a little more paper that needs to be pushed.”

For certain development and construction projects, landowners will have to navigate regulations from the state Department of Natural Resources, but if the land exceeds three acres, they’ll also have to deal with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Paul Frey, executive director of the Louisiana Landowners Association, said it’s too much bureaucracy to thrust upon property owners who live far north of the saltwater line.

“There’s an impression among parish officials that this will generate more revenue for coastal projects,” Frey said. “However, there is a concern that by enlarging the coastal area, you’ll diffuse the dollars that are available.”

Dove said that isn’t necessarily true because new federal dollars are coming, as well as BP oil-spill fine money.

Plus, he said, it’s mainly the inland boundary being redrawn, not the Gulf-bound areas.

Stephen Chustz of the Department of Natural Resources said 1,887 square miles of land are being added to the zone, increasing the current area by 12 percent.

Most notably, about 187 square miles of land are being removed from the Florida parishes.

The 2010 regular session was the last time the Legislature added new portions of Terrebonne and Lafourche. That was also when Ascension Parish became the 20th member of the coastal zone.

Chustz said redefining the inland boundary one more time will allow the state to better manage the infrastructure of communities along the coast, which are increasingly in need of services similar to those applied to marshes and other salty terrain.

In an earlier committee hearing on the House side, he also said it should improve Louisiana’s chances for more federal funding.

“It sends a really strong statement to Washington about how serious we take our coastal resources,” Chustz said.

As for the more northern areas resisting the changes, Rep. Truck Gisclair, D-Larose, said during the same committee meeting that he trusts the science behind the state’s most recent findings due in large part to the tidal tests involved.

“Don’t you think if you’re affected by tidal changes you should be part of the coast?” Gisclair asked.

Capitol Correspondent Jeremy Alford can be reached at jeremy@jeremyalford.com.